Fines Plague Restaurants as They Try to Make the Grade

Posted on 01. Nov, 2010 by Emily Lavin in Uncategorized

Betty Cooney does not hide her disdain for the health inspectors who evaluate the restaurants in her neighborhood.

She can rattle off a list of violations they’ve cited that she finds unfair, like the restaurant owner fined because he took off his hat as he walked through the kitchen to the bathroom, or the one fined because his personal bathroom in the back of the restaurant had a broken door.

“They’re like hawks circling these small businesses ready to pounce,” said Cooney, the executive director of the Graham Avenue business improvement district in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood.

In July, the Department of Health began assigning New York City restaurants letter grades based on the number of violation points racked up during inspection. The New York State Restaurant Association fought successfully to keep certain types of violations – those not directly related to food preparation and safety – from counting toward the grades that restaurants are required to display in their windows.

But even though those violations don’t count toward a letter grade score, they do still carry fines — and many of the city’s restaurant owners are wondering why.

“They’ve basically said, here are the things that are important in the inspection process, and here are the things that aren’t as critical,” said one owner of a restaurant on Ninth Avenue in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. He asked not to be named because his restaurant is in the middle of its inspection process. “But let’s still charge you for both.”

Many of the unscored violations that owners receive can be fixed on the spot, such as a sign not posted in its proper place, said Andrew Rigie, the director of operations for the New York State Restaurant Association.

“Owners are paying fines for violations that are fixed by the time the inspector walks out the door,” said Rigie.

When city restaurants are evaluated, inspectors issue a notice for any violations they find. For each violation that is upheld, the owners pay a fine that runs anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars.

Restaurants are then re-inspected a few weeks later and given their final letter grade. Any violations found during the re-inspection carry another round of fines.

“They are already paying two sets of fines by default to obtain a letter grade,” Rigie said. “Fines for unscored violations are an extra headache.”

The NYSRA will spend the next year surveying restaurants about their inspection experience in hopes that they can work with the Health Department to improve the process, Rigie said.

Cooney would like to see a system where unscored violations carry warnings first and fines as a last resort.

“Are there some restaurants out there that need to be fined, that need a wake up call? Absolutely,” Cooney said. “But most of these guys are working seven days a week, trying to stay afloat. Not every single violation needs to take aim at their pocketbooks.”